Last weekend a number of large fires destroyed around 2 000 hectares of land across farms and municipal land in and around Grahamstown.
Last weekend a number of large fires destroyed around 2 000 hectares of land across farms and municipal land in and around Grahamstown.
"There was a spate of fires in Grahamstown over the past three or four days," Kevin Bates, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation at Makana Municipality, told Grocott's Mail on Monday morning 14 October.
Firefighters worked for more than 34 hours in an attempt to stop three big blazes in the Highlands area, while a fire also broke out in Ilchester Road near a substation.
Bates, who was called out to the scene, said the first of three major fires broke out on Upper Gletwyn farm, the home of Wylie's Dairy, on Thursday 10 October.
"We responded to that fire and put it out, but it flared up again on Friday," said Bates. On Friday, the fire jumped the N2 on to a fruit farm, where it destroyed a newly planted orchard. The cause of this fire is still unknown, but strong south-easterly winds helped it spread.
Another fire started on Friday on the Lothians road, the gravel-road right turn from the N2, shortly after Salem Crossroads farm stall. Bates said the fire started on private property and burnt across the mountain all the way to the Highlands road, which it jumped just west of Coldsprings.
While the fire department contained the fire, protecting homes on smallholdings north of the Highlands road, the fire burned all the way across to Strowan, where it was stopped on the farm's boundary.
The area is largely inaccessible to big vehicles, so farmers in the area brought water tanks on trailers attached to the backs of their bakkies to assist with the blaze.
While busy fighting that fire late on Saturday 12 October, Bates and other firefighters saw another fire had started from near the Highlands tower.
It burnt across to farmer Trevor Hoole's property, Slaaikraal. Through back-burning, Bates said his team had managed to stop one arm of the fire above Jameson dam.
Hoole had been helping to fight the Lothians/Coldsprings fire when he saw smoke arising from his own property.
He was on his way to check on it when Grocott's Mail spoke to him, as sections of the fire were still burning on Monday 14 October.
Hoole said the fire had started when the weekend's strong winds blew down two Eskom cables on the farm.
He said apart from a group of Eskom workers who had come to his farm to repair the power lines, he had not been in contact with the electricity provider about the accident.
Grocott's Mail had not yet succeeded in obtaining comment from Eskom at the time of publishing.
"I don't want to take legal action, I just hope they will meet me half way," said Hoole, who lost about 50ha of his farm to the blaze.
Farmers moved their livestock into areas that were already burned to the ground, and residents leasing grazing from farmers were also on the scene to assist with the evacuation.
"It feels good to have so much support from local farmers," said a resident who helped put out the fires in the Highlands area. "A fire such as this with winds this strong can really rip through a number of farms."
While these three fires were blazing through farms around Grahamstown, a number of other small fires broke out around the city.
A fire which started in Cradock Heights burned all the way to Ilchester Road and threatened a number of houses. Three Makana fire trucks and a volunteer fire fighter managed to control the blaze before it caused damage to houses in the area.
More fires were reported to have been burning at the municipal rubbish dump and at Collingham Towers farm on the N2 towards East London.
Photos: Sarah Cohen
